


Someone Needs to Look Out for That Man

by CallToMuster



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Gen, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Hurt Matt Murdock, Police
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 02:44:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13090749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallToMuster/pseuds/CallToMuster
Summary: Officer Melissa Sanchez and her experiences with Human Disaster Matt Murdock.





	Someone Needs to Look Out for That Man

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah the title is trash, I know. If anyone has any better suggestions, please send them to me!
> 
> Written for this prompt: https://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/9408.html?replyto=18289856
> 
> Partly inspired by "Occupational Hazard" by whitchry9
> 
> Also, written in about a day, so I apologize for all errors. 
> 
> I seriously love this show, guys.

Officer Melissa Sanchez was the first to admit that she wasn’t very experienced. She’d just gotten out of the Academy months before, and as such, she was often given the worst assignments. She didn’t mind though, knowing that eventually she would work her way up. Still, it meant she had to do a lot of paperwork filing. 

Melissa had never seen a form quite like this one, however. It was covered in what seemed to be Braille — although she couldn’t be sure as the only Braille she could remember seeing was the dots below a bathroom sign dictating what gender it was designated — and there was a messy signature scrawled along the bottom. She didn’t recognize the name. 

Confused, Melissa made her way out of the records room and flagged down the first cop she saw. 

“Sorry sir, but do you know what this is?” she asked, holding the paper out to Sergeant Brett Mahoney. He was a good cop, and often took younger ones under his wing. Melissa liked him — not in a romantic way, but in admiration. 

“Ah, that’s Murdock’s,” he answered, eyeing the sheet. Melissa’s brow furrowed. She didn’t know a Murdock in the precinct. “He’s a lawyer that comes here often, with his partner Foggy Nelson.”

If Melissa squinted, she could make out a Murdock in the signature. 

“He’s blind,” Mahoney explained, “so we print paperwork for him in Braille.” 

“Just for him?” 

“Yeah, well,” Mahoney shrugged. “I’d feel like an asshole if I didn’t at least offer it. And he seems grateful, so…”

He trailed off, then looked at the sheet of paper again. “There should’ve been a print copy stapled to this, so we know what we’re looking at.”

“There wasn’t anything attached to the form when I received it, sir.”

“Hmm,” Mahoney narrowed his eyes, probably cursing out the desk sergeant in his head. “Let me keep this and I’ll ask him about it when he comes in here next.”

“Okay, thanks for your help.” Melissa turned around and was about to walk away when Mahoney said something else.

“Sanchez. Want to join me on patrol tonight?”

Melissa gaped. “Oh my — yes, yes of course! Thank you sir, I won’t let you down!”

She bounded back into the records room, spirits high, missing the faint smile that appeared on Mahoney’s face.

—

That night, she and the sergeant were in a patrol car roaming the streets of Hell’s Kitchen when the radio squawked. krsshhhk - Possible 10-20 reported on the corner of West 49th and 11th. Available units please respond. - krssssksshh

Mahoney grabs the radio. “I got it. Responding now.”

Melissa shifted in her seat — 10-20 was a robbery. She flicked the lights and alarm of the patrol car on. They weren’t far from the location, so it didn’t take long to get there. Mahoney got out of the car quickly and seemingly assessed the situation. 

Two shots rang out, one after another. Mahoney stiffened, then drew his gun and darted towards the bodega on the corner. Melissa quickly followed. Once closer, it was clear the action was coming from a nearby alley. 

“NYPD! Get your hands in the air!” Mahoney yelled, Melissa backing him up guns drawn.

Groans could be heard in the darkness, and she saw three men lying on the ground. Melissa caught a glimpse of a familiar sight to Hell’s Kitchen police officers standing above them — a man in all black with a mask covering the top half of his face — before he was gone, parkouring up a nearby fire escape and disappearing into the rooftops. 

Melissa knew she had just spotted the Man in the Mask, or as some people were starting to refer to him, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. 

Mahoney just sighed, clearly used to this, and reached for the radio on his shoulder. “10-54 at the 10-20, dispatch.”

—

“Brett! My man!”

The gleeful shouts could be heard all the way down the hallway, where Melissa had finally been placed in a proper cubicle. She only vaguely knew that Brett was the first name of Sergeant Mahoney, so she was understandably a little curious as to who would be calling him their man. She walked down the hallway and saw a joyful looking man with long blonde hair staring up at Mahoney’s unimpressed face, a dark haired man with sunglasses and a bit of scruff at his side. 

“Nelson, why are you bothering me?” Mahoney raised an eyebrow.

“Matt and I were just wondering if you had any interesting cases. You know, people who might need defending.” Nelson all but winked. 

“Preferably innocent ones,” his friend interjected.

“They’re all innocent in the eyes of the law, Matt,” Nelson said in a playful voice that made it clear they’d had this conversation many times before.  
“No. Now go away.” Mahoney dismissed them with a waft of his hand. 

“Need any help here, Sergeant?” Melissa walked up, smile evident in her voice. 

“Aha! Perhaps a member of the fairer sex will be, well, fairer.” Nelson grinned. “Foggy Nelson, attorney-at-law. This here’s my partner, Matt Murdock.”

The dark haired man smiled slightly and gave a little wave. For the first time (and geez she was a bad police officer) she noticed a long white red-tipped cane in the man’s hand. Melissa was an idiot. The man in front of her was the same Matt Murdock she’d talked with Mahoney about.

A sudden spark in her brain: “Hey, sarge, didn’t you have a form you wanted Mr. Murdock to take a look at? Er, to see? I mean, um —“

“A form?” Murdock jumped in, saving Melissa from dying even further.

Mahoney gave her a Look. “Yeah, one of your files got mixed up and we were wondering if you could tell us what it was.”

“I’d be happy to,” Murdock shrugged, then winced and stretched his shoulder out subtly. Melissa narrowed her eyes slightly as Mahoney went to retrieve the file. A small bandage was peeking out from the man’s sunglasses. What had happened to him?

“You okay, sir? That looks like one hell of a shiner.” 

“I’m fine. Ran into a door,” he said dismissively. Melissa was about to point out that doors didn’t usually cause black eyes when Mahoney returned with the sheet of paper. 

“If you’ll just tell us what this says…”

—

As an officer of the law, Melissa was occasionally called into court to testify. They weren’t usually this exciting, and not in the good way. She was the first officer to respond to a case of what was clearly a pattern of domestic assault, and was in the middle of explaining to Foggy Nelson from the stand what she had seen when something strange happened. 

A man in the front row on the defense’s side had been shifting in his seat nervously for the past hour, but Melissa chalked it up to needing to use the restroom. Now, though, his face shifted into one of resolve as he prepared to stand up. She watched him closely. Something wasn’t right.

“Ma’am. Ma’am.” Mr. Nelson’s voice trailed into her head. He’d clearly been addressing her for a while. She was pulled back into the testimony.

“I’m sorry, what was the question again?” she asked sheepishly.

Mr. Nelson never got the chance to respond because all of a sudden there was a cry of surprise from the judge and she saw an off-color knife sticking out of Matt Murdock’s stomach. The man who stabbed him was running away already, frantically trying to reach the doors, but a suddenly alert bailiff stopped him. Melissa vaulted out of the witness box and went to perform some emergency first-aid like she’d been trained to.

“Oh my god, Matt!” Nelson was at his partner’s side in an instance. Judge Nguyen quickly followed, calling 911 on her cell phone. Melissa eased the blind man to the ground and assessed the situation. 

“Give me your jacket,” she addressed Nelson, who quickly complied. She stuffed it into a ball and placed it behind Murdock’s head. Murdock was gasping wordlessly in pain, clearly going into shock. Out of the corner of her eye, Melissa could see the room being emptied. In the back of her mind, she thought it was unfair that one of the men who took down Wilson Fisk would be killed by some two-bit criminal with a grudge and a ceramic knife.

“Matt, you’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay, just stay calm. Should we… Should we remove the knife?” Nelson asked, hands twisting in nervousness. 

“No,” Melissa ordered. “I remember that much from my first-aid classes.”

She grabbed Murdock’s legs. “Help me get the wound above his heart. What’s the ETA on the paramedics?”

“Five minutes,” Judge Nguyen replied. The bottom of her black robes were growing darker, and Melissa realized her patient was losing a lot more blood than she’d previously thought.

She cursed. “Nelson, help me put more pressure on the wound.” 

The man quickly complied. He must’ve taken “more” to heart, because Murdock whimpered when Nelson put his hands on his stomach. 

“Matt, can you hear me?” Nelson asked worriedly. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been stabbed,” Murdock groaned, and Nelson laughed wetly.

“You sound okay to me, buddy.”

“Motion for a brief recess,” Murdock said to the judge, who frowned. 

“If I see you again before you get a full a-okay from your doctors, I’ll hold you in contempt.” 

“Take my place while I check his pulse,” Melissa commanded the judge, vaguely aware that she probably shouldn’t do that. The judge didn’t seem to mind, however, doing as told. 

Melissa put a pair of fingers on Murdock’s neck, leaving a smear of his bright red blood. She frowned. “120 beats per minute. He’s got tachycardia. Dammit.”

“I’ll be fine, Officer Sanchez,” Murdock breathed. “Just gimme a minute or two.”

Closer examination of the man revealed he was breaking into a cold sweat. Shock was setting in further. 

“We need to get him warmer.” Her mind raced, thinking of what she could use to cover him. Judge Nguyen was one step ahead of her, already removing her robes to reveal a smart looking pantsuit and covering the defense attorney.

“Fuck!” Nelson exclaimed, summing up everyone’s thoughts about the situation. “Did anyone get a good look at who attacked Matt?”

“He was wearing a black jacket and sitting in the front row, clearly nervous,” Melissa recalled. “I thought something was up, but I didn’t think he was going to do this.”

Murdock’s brow was furrowed. “I gotta — he’s gonna get away —“ He started to get up, crying out in the process. 

“Matt, buddy, you gotta stay down,” Nelson said anxiously and pushed him back. Just then, the EMTs arrived, carrying a stretcher and medical equipment. Melissa rose to greet them.

“Patient’s name is Matt, he’s been stabbed in the abdomen. Knife has not been removed. His pulse is 120 bpm and he’s going into shock. He’s also blind.” 

“Okay thanks, we’ll take it from here,” one of them said, and Melissa was ushered out of the room. The hallway had been cleared as well, apparently, and when she went into the bathroom to scrub Matt’s blood of her hands, she was the only one there.

That man’s luck is horrible, she thought. Someone needs to look out for him. 

—

Much changed in the life of Melissa Sanchez over the following year. She got engaged, a promotion to sergeant, and was transferred to a Harlem precinct. She figured that would be the last she’d see of Foggy Nelson and Matt Murdock, but one day she came face to face with them again. 

Foggy had cleaned up a bit, hair no longer pushing the boundaries for what was acceptable as a professional man. She’d heard Nelson & Murdock had been disbanded, the two partners going their separate ways. Nelson must’ve gotten hired somewhere more prestigious, where he didn’t get paid in rhubarb pies and bananas, and where he had to cut his hair. It was weird to see him without Murdock. The cognitive dissonance didn’t last long, however, because Misty Knight was dragging the man in unconscious. Melissa gasped, wondering what happened to the man. Had he been stabbed again?

The people being carried in behind him gave her some more pieces to the puzzle. She’d recognize Luke Cage and Jessica Jones anywhere. Melissa vaguely wondered what Matt Murdock was doing with the likes of them. He didn’t have any powers. 

She walked forward and almost stepped on a pair of red glasses. They must’ve fallen off of Murdock as he was being carried in. She hurried to scoop them up before anyone else could make the mistake she almost had. 

Melissa hurried to give them back, but the stretcher was just rounding the corner. She broke into a slight run to catch up. Detective Knight and Mr. Nelson were laying the attorney down on the couch of some poor soul’s private office. 

“Sanchez, get his shirt to Evidence for me.” Knight ordered, spotting Melissa.

“Me?” she pointed at herself.

Knight gave her a Look just like Mahoney used to. “Do you see anyone else here named Sanchez?”

She left before Melissa could stutter out an apology. 

“We have got to stop meeting like this,” Nelson exclaimed, slightly exasperated. “Every time you show up, Matt is hurt.”

“I guess I’m just a bad luck charm,” she said jokingly, but deep down wondered if it was true.

“Oh well,” Nelson got down to business. “Help me get this shirt off him?” 

Melissa took a deep breath and nodded. It would be a little awkward, but then again, she had literally stopped the man from bleeding out before, she thought she could handle it. 

Murdock was more muscular than she expected, every inch of him firm. It made removing the shirt a bit of a pain, but Nelson helped (“We were roommates in undergrad and law school, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”). The sight she saw when the shirt was finally off was not one she was expecting. Murdock’s chest and stomach were covered with scars, some pale white and thin, others huge and gnarled. She recognized the placement of the knife wound from the courthouse, but he’d only been stabbed once then, not a dozen times as his chest evidenced.

Nelson didn’t seem surprised, just a bit disappointed. Maybe he was the one doing it to Murdock…? No, that couldn’t possibly be true. From all that she’d seen of their friendship, she could never believe that.

Melissa snapped out of it. “I’ll say if I can dig up a spare shirt to give him.”

The Lost and Found wasn’t far from the office, so she returned within the minute with an NYPD Harlem t-shirt. 

“Being a defense attorney, I’m sure he’ll love it.” She smiled and shoved it over the man’s head. “Haven’t seen you around lately, Nelson. What have you been up to? I heard Nelson & Murdock is no more.”

“Yeah, well,” Nelson sighed. “Sometimes things just don’t work out.”

From the tender look he was giving his partner, she figured there had to be more to the story, but she wasn’t going to pry. Suddenly, she remembered the glasses in her pocket. 

“Oh! I’ll uh, I’ll just leave these here.” Melissa set the glasses carefully on the desk. Nelson didn’t look up. “Claire Temple, the nurse, said he was out pretty cold, so if you wanted to go grab some coffee from the break room or something I’m sure he won’t mind.”

“Maybe later,” Nelson replied, finally meeting her eyes. “Thanks.”

—

There was a large crash and then the alarms started blaring. 

“Shit!” Captain Strieber swore, looking out onto the streets of Harlem from the room where a lawyer and two people with superpowers had been talking in just moments before. He stormed out of the room, passing Melissa. She could hear him putting out an APB for the two heroes, as well as advising dispatch that they had a hostage. Melissa’s brow furrowed. That didn’t sound like something Luke Cage would do. Jessica Jones, maybe, but Luke Cage? 

“I think Matt’s never done a damn thing he didn’t want to,” a reporter from the New York Bulletin said to Foggy Nelson down the hall. Melissa filed that piece of information away for later.

She would never get the chance to confront Matt Murdock about it though. He went missing that night, and Melissa was put in charge of his file. She put in an honest effort to find him, but it was like the trail just went cold. 

He showed up alive one day, refusing to say what had happened and moving stiffly. Suspiciously, Daredevil also reappeared around that time after having been killed in the Midland Circle collapse. 

Curious and curiouser. 

Melissa started doing a little private investigating of her own. There was a direct correlation between Daredevil showing up in the newspapers and Matt Murdock being hurt. That time he got stabbed, Daredevil wasn’t seen for weeks. And before he was presumed dead, Daredevil had seemingly retired. Meanwhile, Matt Murdock had thrown himself into pro bono cases.

Melissa smiled to herself. She wasn’t going to be the one to reveal his secret, not if he didn’t want her to. On one hand, she felt better knowing the man could clearly protect himself. On the other, he had so many enemies. 

—

“Who’s that guy?” a young probie asked her a couple months later. Melissa had been promoted again, to a detective, and as such, she was mentoring some younger officers like the one next to her. What was her name? Thompson? Tinkin? Something with a t. Melissa turned to see what the woman was referring to.

“Oh, that’s Matt Murdock,” she explained. She’d recognize the dark red glasses and long white cane anywhere. It didn’t help that she’d saved his life once too. “He’s a lawyer. Watch out for him.”

Tellerson — that was her name — narrowed her eyes. “ Does he cause a lot of trouble?”

“No,” Melissa replied. “But it can’t seem to stop following him. We try to keep him safe here.”

Tellerson nodded solemnly. She would take anything Melissa said as the gospel.

In the distance, Matt Murdock smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Reviews and kudos are, of course, very welcome.


End file.
